by David Gross
A Century of Quantum Mechanics
for 18-22 and upwards,
Lectures | 18-22 and upwards | 4 years ago | 1120 viewsRating:

In October 2011 we celebrated the centenary of the Solvay conferences that played a unique and important role in the development of twentieth century physics, most notably in the quantum revolution whose birth overlapped the initiation of these meeti....

by Rolf-Dieter Heuer
A linear collider at CERN – from IOP
for All ages,
Interviews | All ages | 9 years ago | 1176 viewsRating:

The boss of CERN wants the next big experiment in particle physics after the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) to be built at the Geneva lab. Speaking in an interview with physicsworld.com, Rolf-Dieter Heuer said that CERN should host the experiment, which....

by David Phillips
A Little Light Relief
for 14-19 and upwards,
Lectures | 14-19 and upwards | 5 years ago | 1175 viewsRating:

Light, particularly sunlight, is believed to be good for our health. Many ancient civilisations even attributed it with mystical healing powers.Renowned for his entertaining lectures, Professor David Phillips, President of the RSC, uses his expertise....

by Klaus vonKlitzing
A New Kilogram in 2018: The Biggest Revolution in Metrology Since the French Revolution
for 18-22 and upwards,
Lectures | 18-22 and upwards | 3 years ago | 742 viewsRating:

Metrology - the science of measurements - is responsible for the international uniformity and precision in standards. Today, the seven units for meter, kilogram, second, ampere, kelvin, mole, and candela of our international system of units (SI units....

The quantum gas is an extreme state of an ensemble of atoms when their de Broglie wave length is of the same length as the size of the container. The ways of achieving this state are described and also how its temperature is defined.

David Gross's Nobel Prize was for work on the 'strong' force which acts between quarks inside the atom. Now he works on string theory, hoping to understand how all the forces of nature could be united. He believes the next steps may involve throwing ....

K. Alexander Müller shared the Nobel Prize for Physics with J. Georg Bednorz in 1987 'for their important break-through in the discovery of superconductivity in ceramic materials'. At the age of 9 Mller was given a radio (a single vacuum tube receiv....

The idea of time travel makes great science fiction, but can it really be achieved? Paul Davies, Visiting Professor of Physics at Imperial College, describes wormholes in space and other ways that might allow travel into the past or future.

by William Phillips
Cold Atomic Gases: the Intersection of Condensed Matter and Atomic Physics
for 18-22 and upwards,
Lectures | 18-22 and upwards | 4 years ago | 694 viewsRating:

During the past decade laser cooling and evaporative cooling of atoms have produced quantum degenerate gases both of bosons (Bose-Einstein condensates) and of fermions (gases with temperatures below the Fermi temperature). Such gases can provide ana....

For my project I am giving a brief history of color theory with emphasis on how science and color theory have interacted. I focus on aspects like primary colors, how color is perceived, and the artists who were at the forefront of color and design. I....

Most of the data we generate and receive (whether emails, tweets, videos or mobile calls) are now carried by optical fibres, which use light to transmit vast quantities of information over trans-oceanic distances. The use of hundreds of wavelengths ....

by Colin Byfleet
Communication on Earth, using Cables and Satellites
for 11-14 and upwards,
Lectures | 11-14 and upwards | 9 years ago | 1061 viewsRating:

A brief look at the Physics behind sending signals along cables and via geostationary satellites. An experiment to measure the speed of an electrical pulse in a cable is described and the Physics of the orbits of communcations satellites is develope....

The main problems associated with communicating with distant space probes like Voyager 1 are investigated. The role played by diffraction in limiting the amount of power receivable on Earth is discussed. The further problems of reaching a nearby st....

by Serge Haroche
Controlling Photons in a Box and Exploring the Quantum to Classical Boundary
for 18-22 and upwards,
Lectures | 18-22 and upwards | 4 years ago | 850 viewsRating:

The founders of quantum theory assumed in 'thought experiments' that they were manipulating isolated quantum systems, obeying the counterintuitive laws which they had just discovered. Technological advances have recently turned these virtual experi....

by James Cronin
Cosmic Rays: the Most Energetic Particles in the Universe
for 18-22 and upwards,
Lectures | 18-22 and upwards | 4 years ago | 635 viewsRating:

Astrophysical objects are able to accelerate atomic nuclei to energies 10^7 times more than man made accelerators such as LHC. _Particles arrive at earth from space with energies as great as 50 joules, a macroscopic energy in a microscopic particle.....

Cold, quantum degenerate gases of neutral atoms have proved to be useful in simulating the behavior of quantum systems like electrons in solids. For example, cold atoms moving in optical lattices (periodic potentials created by interfering laser be....

Smoot's Nobel Prize was awarded for his analysis of that whisper from the Big Bang, the cosmic microwave background radiation. Today he hopes CERN's data will again transform our understanding of the universe. Young scientists Bilge Demirkoz and Benj....

What do six brides have to do with Density-Functional Theory? Discover it in this lecture, in which the essential ideas behind DFT are explained in three different non-technical ways. After this practical lecture, you will be able to understand the m....

I had the great fortune to receive a Nobel Prize in Physics for using electron tunneling to measure the energy gap in superconductors. In this talk I will recollect some of the events that led to this discovery and hopefully I will be able to convey....

What might 'new Einsteins' achieve in the 21st century? Science offers more intellectual challenges than ever, but is a less individualistic enterprise. Technology offers imense opportunities, but poses threats and ethical dilemmas. Can scientists re....

This short video shows one of the demonstrations for the Physics SEPNet exhibition - "Who will keep the lights on?" which travelled around the southern UK from February 2009. We describe and explain the electrical generator demonstration which Jona....

Since the time of Faraday lines of force in space have been 'observed' by sprinkling iron filings around magnet. The lecturer explains how, with modern techniques we can 'see' lines of force inside a solid magnet. The studies reveal a fascinating dyn....

by John Barrow
Every picture tells a story
for 18-22 and upwards,
Lectures | 18-22 and upwards | 8 years ago | 709 viewsRating:

We will look at the role of pictures and images in the development of science. From the first graphs and illustrated books to Molscript, the influence of the first pictures of spiral galaxies on Van Gogh's 'Starry Night', to the artistic resonances o....

by John Hall
Fibre and Sunlight
for 14-19 and upwards,
Lectures | 14-19 and upwards | 9 years ago | 839 viewsRating:

Fine tuning the frequencies of light gave John Hall a Nobel Prize, and helped transform the fields of precision measurement and information transmission. Iris Choi and Andrei Ghicov are young scientists excited by the ways physics can change our worl....

by John Hall
Five Decades of Lasers, Six Decades of Progress, and a Proposed Space Experiment to test Einstein’s Assumptions
for 18-22 and upwards,
Lectures | 18-22 and upwards | 4 years ago | 598 viewsRating:

Even though this is the 51st year of the Laser, progress in its control and application in precision measurements is still accelerating. The Optical Frequency Comb technology exploded in 1999-2000 from the synthesis of advances in independent field....

Classical dynamics uses the concept of force for its solution. On the other hand force in quantum dynamics has no meaning and the concept of potential energy is used instead. The question is, "which one of the concepts is more fundamental?".

A historical overview is presented of the experimental development of ever shorter laser pulses from 1960 to the present. Already in the early sixties nanosecond pulses were achieved and the entry into the picosecond domain was reached in the late s....

Standing spinwaves and surface waves in layered magnetic structures can be used for the detection and quantitative evaluation of interlayer exchange coupling (IEC). Using this method antiferromagnetic IEC has been found in Fe/Cr/Fe layered structure....

One of the most remarkable results of astro-particle Physics has been the success of the Standard Model, recently culminated in the discovery of the Higgs particle (Ho). However, the Ho is observable only in few channels at the LHC, in the presence o....

Gerardus 't Hooft, the Netherlands shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1999 with Martinus J.F. Veltman, the Netherlands 'for elucidating the quantum structure of electroweak interactions in physics'. He came from a family of intellectuals. His great....

A magnetic tunnel junction is a device with two magnets separated by a very thin non-magnetic barrier. The two magnets can be aligned parallel or antiparallel. The electrical resistance of this devices depends on the alignment. This video illustrates....

In 2000 Herbert Kroemer, who was born in Germany, and works at UCSB in the USA shared half of the Nobel Prize for Physics with Zhores I. Alferov ( Russia ) 'for basic work on information and communication technology' and in particular 'for developing....

by Jonathan Hare
How does a transistor work?
for 11-14 and upwards,
Lectures | 11-14 and upwards | 5 years ago | 1462 viewsRating:

A short video explaining how transistors work. At the heart of our high-tech society with radios, mobile phones, computers and space exploration are tiny electronic components called transistors. They have revolutionised electronics and in the pr....

by Amand Lucas
How X-rays cracked the structure of DNA
for 14-19 and upwards,
Lectures | 14-19 and upwards | 9 years ago | 909 viewsRating:

An elegantly simple optical diffraction demonstration with an inexpensive laser pointer is used to show the way in which x-rays can reveal the structure of crystals, and in particular, the double helix structure of DNA.

Ivar Giaever won the Nobel Prize in 1973 for his investigations of tunneling in semiconductors and superconductors. Giaever worked on metal thin films and tunneling and took a Solid State physics course. Although he knew nothing about Superconductivi....

The simple Balmer spectrum of atomic hydrogen has provided the Rosetta stone for deciphering the strange laws of quantum physics during the early 20th century. Four decades ago, Doppler-free laser spectroscopy opened a new chapter in the exploratio....

Leo Esaki is a Japanese physicist who shared half the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1973 with Ivar Giaever for the discovery of the phenomenon of electron tunneling. The second half of the prize was awarded to Brian David Josephson. He is known for his i....

by Helen Sharman
Life in Space
for 14-19 and upwards,
Discussions | 14-19 and upwards | 9 years ago | 907 viewsRating:

Helen Sharman, the UK's first astronaut, gives a vibrant account of her personal experience of life in space using models and film to illustrate the key scientific concepts involved in spaceflight. Among other things she discusses the way Newton's Th....

Light is reflected off a flexible shiny surface fixed to the end of a plastic tube. When one speaks into the tubes sound vibrations pass down the tube and make the surface vibrate. The reflected light is therefore sent off from the surface in a con....

Maxwell's electromagnetic theory (now 150 years old) seemed in its comprehensive way to be capable of answering all of the questions one might ever pose about the theory of light. But that spell was broken in 1900 by Planck's discovery that light bea....

by George Smoot
Mapping the Universe and Its History
for 18-22 and upwards,
Lectures | 18-22 and upwards | 4 years ago | 873 viewsRating:

Using our most advanced techniques and instruments we sift through study the cosmic microwave background as a relic of the early universe to understand the events surrounding the birth and subsequent development of the Universe. A precision inspect....

Martinus J.F. Veltman, the Netherlands shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1999 with Gerardus 't Hooft the Netherlands 'for elucidating the quantum structure of electroweak interactions in physics'. Not all areas of Holland were very advanced when V....

Charles Hard Townes received the Nobel Prize for Phyiscs in 1964 'for fundamental work in the field of quantum electronics, which has led to the construction of oscillators and amplifiers based on the maser-laser principle' He was award half of the P....

Mildred Dresselhaus was born in Brooklyn, New York and grew up in a poor section of the Bronx. She was a Fullbright Fellow at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge University (UK) in 1951-52 and obtained a PhD at the University of Chicago in 1958. Mill....

Jonathan shows us with a cheap and simple homemade demonstration how your mobile telephone generates radio waves in order for you to use it to communicate. As you will see you can use this method to explore many aspects of your mobile phone!

The discovery of superconductivity in hole doped La2CuO4 was motivated by the interest to find this phenomenon in an oxide. After the discovery near 35 K, copper oxides with transition temperatures of up to 131 K at normal pressure were found, i.e.....

During the Renaissance in Venice, composers such as the Gabrieli and Moneverdi created some of their greatest masterpieces for performance in the great churches on festive occasions. But what would the music have sounded like, given its complexity an....